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{BLOG} Getting started as an Industrialist
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Celgar Thurn
Department 10
#41 - 2012-12-24 16:15:21 UTC
Kiger Wulf wrote:


I definitely don't fall into the Minerals I Mine Are Free category, because I know they aren't free. They just didn't cost me any ISK to buy. Is there a price I could set on them if I were selling them? Absolutely. But, I never mined them with the intention of selling them. I mined them with the intention of using them. So, no cost directly to me, just potential ISK lost because I could've sold them directly.


Not sure whether to file your statements under 'troll' or 'the customer is always right'. Probably the latter. Read what you are saying. You are a proponent of the MIMAF philosophy when you say the ore you mined didn't cost you anything to buy. I agree that the primary function of playing EVE Online is to have fun and enjoy playing a game but the MIMAF philosophy is totally illogical. It is also not dissimilar to the RL practices of corporations such as Tesco(UK based supermarket chain.) who sell produce at a loss to destroy others businesses and cripple their suppliers. In other words MIMAF is not a healthy way of running a business whether in RL or in New Eden. Smile
Pyus
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#42 - 2012-12-24 18:33:53 UTC
Celgar Thurn wrote:

It is also not dissimilar to the RL practices of corporations such as Tesco(UK based supermarket chain.) who sell produce at a loss to destroy others businesses and cripple their suppliers. In other words MIMAF is not a healthy way of running a business whether in RL or in New Eden. Smile


Well, the other way of looking at this is that predatory pricing like this is very good for Tesco if they do in fact drive their competition out with this practice and then get to set prices wherever they want due to a lack of competition. It can be bad for the public of course What?

To the OP:
Kiger Wulf wrote:

But, I never mined them with the intention of selling them. I mined them with the intention of using them. So, no cost directly to me, just potential ISK lost because I could've sold them directly.


Like a lot of us, you're not always playing solely for the ISK, and you're enjoying the RP side of the game etc.. That perspective and play style is very healthy and good for long-term success and happiness in this game I think. "Success" as an industrialist can be rather subjective in this respect.

Where things get sticky with this perspective however is when looking for advice on forums, comparing notes, or bragging to others about recent exploits in chat, etc.. In these situations objectivity rules, and we need to describe activities with more detail and accuracy in order for them to be meaningful. This is where the Opportunity Cost must always be accounted for to some reasonable degree of precision (no need to get too crazy tracking costs).

When talking about the profitability of any manufacturing activities with others, you really must account for the cost of materials that went into the product, regardless of how you came by the materials. Whether you mined them yourself with the intention of just having fun out under the virtual stars while watching a movie, or Santa gave them to you, they're cost must be accounted for in some objective fashion when discussing profitability with others.

Very glad you are enjoying EVE and I think your blog is great and helpful to others.
Kiger Wulf
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#43 - 2012-12-25 15:43:04 UTC
Pyus wrote:
Like a lot of us, you're not always playing solely for the ISK, and you're enjoying the RP side of the game etc.. That perspective and play style is very healthy and good for long-term success and happiness in this game I think. "Success" as an industrialist can be rather subjective in this respect.

Where things get sticky with this perspective however is when looking for advice on forums, comparing notes, or bragging to others about recent exploits in chat, etc.. In these situations objectivity rules, and we need to describe activities with more detail and accuracy in order for them to be meaningful. This is where the Opportunity Cost must always be accounted for to some reasonable degree of precision (no need to get too crazy tracking costs).

When talking about the profitability of any manufacturing activities with others, you really must account for the cost of materials that went into the product, regardless of how you came by the materials. Whether you mined them yourself with the intention of just having fun out under the virtual stars while watching a movie, or Santa gave them to you, they're cost must be accounted for in some objective fashion when discussing profitability with others.

Very glad you are enjoying EVE and I think your blog is great and helpful to others.



Thanks for the kind words regarding the blog!

You guys are definitely making your point heard. =)
Skorpynekomimi
#44 - 2012-12-25 21:39:13 UTC
Kiger Wulf wrote:
The Planetary Interaction post I promised is UP!

www.wulfbrothers.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading!


PI: I can safely say 'ur doin it rong'.

Of COURSE selling to buy orders is making a loss due to taxes and materials. Either stick it up on sell orders, or make PoS fuel blocks with the stuff.

I've done the maths. I know that, with my PI setup, my BPOs, and buying basic materials and ice products off the market, I can make a profit with PoS fuel blocks, and get a quick sale with little market games.
Even just buying the components for the stuff off sell orders, I get a profit margin.
I don't get what you're doing wrong. Maybe you're just using the wrong system?

Mind you, I got a bunch of help with my fuel block setup. The BPOs were a CCP gift, circumstances in lowsec mean a relatively low tax rate with little risk, and someone in my alliance swapped their researched BPOs for my fresh ones for a decent price.

Economic PVP
Kiger Wulf
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#45 - 2012-12-25 21:45:10 UTC
Skorpynekomimi wrote:


PI: I can safely say 'ur doin it rong'.

Of COURSE selling to buy orders is making a loss due to taxes and materials. Either stick it up on sell orders, or make PoS fuel blocks with the stuff.

I've done the maths. I know that, with my PI setup, my BPOs, and buying basic materials and ice products off the market, I can make a profit with PoS fuel blocks, and get a quick sale with little market games.
Even just buying the components for the stuff off sell orders, I get a profit margin.
I don't get what you're doing wrong. Maybe you're just using the wrong system?

Mind you, I got a bunch of help with my fuel block setup. The BPOs were a CCP gift, circumstances in lowsec mean a relatively low tax rate with little risk, and someone in my alliance swapped their researched BPOs for my fresh ones for a decent price.


I am ABSOLUTELY certain that you are right about me doing it wrong. This is one of those things that I'm going to work on in depth at some point in the future, but I haven't taken a lot of time with it right now.

It also highlights one of the aspects of this blog and that is from someone who doesn't know anything to (hopefully) someone who has some good advice on industrial life in the future.

Thanks for the comments! =)
Skorpynekomimi
#46 - 2012-12-25 21:54:12 UTC
Kiger Wulf wrote:
Skorpynekomimi wrote:


PI: I can safely say 'ur doin it rong'.

Of COURSE selling to buy orders is making a loss due to taxes and materials. Either stick it up on sell orders, or make PoS fuel blocks with the stuff.

I've done the maths. I know that, with my PI setup, my BPOs, and buying basic materials and ice products off the market, I can make a profit with PoS fuel blocks, and get a quick sale with little market games.
Even just buying the components for the stuff off sell orders, I get a profit margin.
I don't get what you're doing wrong. Maybe you're just using the wrong system?

Mind you, I got a bunch of help with my fuel block setup. The BPOs were a CCP gift, circumstances in lowsec mean a relatively low tax rate with little risk, and someone in my alliance swapped their researched BPOs for my fresh ones for a decent price.


I am ABSOLUTELY certain that you are right about me doing it wrong. This is one of those things that I'm going to work on in depth at some point in the future, but I haven't taken a lot of time with it right now.

It also highlights one of the aspects of this blog and that is from someone who doesn't know anything to (hopefully) someone who has some good advice on industrial life in the future.

Thanks for the comments! =)


You're welcome. And thanks for not hurling abuse like so many others tend to, here.

How are you calculating your profits, anyway? Excel spreadsheets?

Economic PVP
Kiger Wulf
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#47 - 2012-12-25 23:58:23 UTC
I do use Excel spreadsheets. However, so far, I'm just kicking it old school with a journal =)
Skorpynekomimi
#48 - 2012-12-26 09:07:24 UTC
Ahh. I'm running off stuff I learned in school, with fancy stuff in the spreadsheets and automatic calculations. And details of all my BPOs in another sheet so I can copy and paste them.

General rule of thumb is that the more of the work you do yourself, you more ISK you make, but the longer it takes. Just a question of how much your time is worth.

Economic PVP
Maire Gheren
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#49 - 2012-12-28 19:48:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Maire Gheren
Kiger Wulf wrote:
I've taken Economics, so I completely understand the idea of opportunity cost. I understand why I need to value my TIME. However, I still don't understand why people are so against calling minerals "free." If they don't cost me anything, then, yes I could be shorting myself the price of just selling the minerals, but I also am doing what I want, which is to manufacture products to sell on the market. The minerals, then, are free, in that they don't have an ISK cost attached to them when I mine myself.

Once you acquire all the materials you need to build a batch of whatever, run a plan B set of numbers in which you just sell the ore/metal without building anything. If it is more profitable to just sell the ore, don't build the module and just sell the ore. Later on, you can get scrapmetal processing and be able to run the numbers for "buying the competitions' stuff and turning them into metal to sell". After getting in the habit of doing that stuff you'll understand why people think "metal I mine is free" is silly. Spending the time building something to sell it at a loss is just throwing money away, like self destructing ships instead of unfitting them.
Kiger Wulf
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#50 - 2012-12-29 05:13:58 UTC
You've all been fantastic readers and commenters. Thanks for all the feedback so far.

There's a new update on the blog. As always, feel free to comment here or there. I read them all!

www.wulfbrothers.blogspot.com

-KW
Hans Tesla
RigWerks Incorporated
#51 - 2012-12-29 14:49:56 UTC
Enjoying the blog.

Welcome to the wild world of rigging. I've found rigs to generally be pretty profitable. As with all things, it all depends on what you manufacture. Rigs can be a bit more challenging due to the fact that they all pretty much get lumped together in the market depending on what kind of system they apply to (i.e. armor, hybrid weapons, etc). The problem is that some rigs are such corner cases that they rarely get used. Market history is key for that. I'd suggest going to a big trade hub and see what the market history is for any rig you want to consider manufacturing.

I'm also interested to see what, if any, effect the new Salvage drones are going to have on the rig materials market.

Head Rigger In Charge
Kiger Wulf
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#52 - 2012-12-31 22:13:03 UTC
Happy New Year Capsuleers!!

Today, December 2012 is officially drawing to a close. I closed the books a couple of minutes ago and wrote up a report for this month.

You can find the report at www.wulfbrothers.blogspot.com

Thanks everyone for reading, commenting and thrashing me for believing that Minerals I Mine are Free. You've been great for the first month. I appreciate the support!

See ya in 2013!
Sidrat Flush
KarmaFleet
#53 - 2013-01-02 08:15:21 UTC
Congratulations on your first 20 days, with prevoous experience and pe5 even higher profits will be yours.

Its time to stand up against the bad empire based CEO telling falsehoods about what new characters can accomplish and pushing them towards an in game experience of drudgery and loneliness keeping them in the shadow of ignorance for at nest their own profit at worse apathy towards all the experiences that Eve has to offer.
Toku Jiang
Jiang Laboratories and Discovery
#54 - 2013-01-02 16:12:09 UTC
You seem to be gravitating in the right direction. The blog is an interesting view of a new industrialist and how they are basically learning on the fly. I would however recommend that you either put all of the items you produce (PI or otherwise) up for sell orders rather than selling to a buy orders, and switch to buying any materials you don't acquire yourself through buy orders. Patience I find is the key to making larger profit margins. Blink
Kiger Wulf
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#55 - 2013-01-03 04:41:26 UTC
Good evening, Capsuleers!

There's a new post over at wulfbrothers.blogspot.com detailing the first days of an Industrialist and some steps you can take to expand and enhance your profitability. Check it out, leave comments there so that new players can see the discussion on that post for all of eternity, or until my blog is destroyed by the Minmatar (who absolutely hate me, although I can't figure out why).

I also added a small contest to the post for those of you with super sharp eyesight and the gift of finding things. It's not a huge prize, but it's a prize none-the-less!

Go check out www.wulfbrothers.blogspot.com

Big thanks to Sidrat Flush for all the support both here, on the blog itself and through EVEMail. Make sure you check out EIO, it represents a lot of work from Mr. Flush!

Fly Safe, my friends!!
Skorpynekomimi
#56 - 2013-01-03 14:08:58 UTC
You've officially inspired me to take my industrial dabblings seriously, at least for a while.

Although, things are again on hold until some things SHIFT. PoS fuel blocks are not the most reliable of markets.

Economic PVP
Hellynx84
Nemesis Logistics
Goonswarm Federation
#57 - 2013-01-04 07:12:52 UTC
Just finished reading you blog, and will be watching for updates. Great to read on this subject from the POV of someone who is just starting.

This is something I have wanted to do, alongside my freighter runs, but never found any blogs like this to get me going.

Cheers and Keep up the Good Work.

..
Kiger Wulf
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#58 - 2013-01-04 18:09:57 UTC
Happy Friday everyone! There's a new post at:

www.wulfbrothers.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading!
Skorpynekomimi
#59 - 2013-01-04 20:15:58 UTC
Kiger Wulf wrote:
Happy Friday everyone! There's a new post at:

www.wulfbrothers.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading!


On marketing: They're not buying from the other guy's order because they think you're a jerk; they're doing it because the other guy has more stuff up, and they want to save clicks. At least, that's what I do when buying off sell orders in bulk.

Also, train up trade skills! Tax reduction is a thing.

Economic PVP
Kiger Wulf
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#60 - 2013-01-04 20:19:04 UTC
Skorpynekomimi wrote:


On marketing: They're not buying from the other guy's order because they think you're a jerk; they're doing it because the other guy has more stuff up, and they want to save clicks. At least, that's what I do when buying off sell orders in bulk.

Also, train up trade skills! Tax reduction is a thing.


Ah yes, good point. I didn't think of that =)

When I was a noob, I always clicked on the "normal" priced link because I didn't like that they were trying to undercut the competition so shamelessly. Now I understand it's just a game mechanic. =)